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72 Are the Androids Dreaming Yet?

would be very hard for a human but easy for a computer. If you got a very quick answer; the computer would have given itself away. But, the computer has been programmed not to give itself away, and it is free to give the answer slowly or even reply that the calculation is too hard. Our computer can say anything it likes, including lying to pass the test! If the computer can fool a questioner into believing it is a human then Turing argued the computer has shown it is at least as intelligent as we are.

It used to be assumed that the field of broad general knowledge would be hard for a computer, but Watson has shown this is not so. With enough storage and a reasonable algorithm, winning a pub quiz is well within the capability of a modern computer.

The really difficult questions for a computer are philosophical ones, novel questions and things that don’t fall into a pattern. For example,
“Are you happy?”
“What do you think of Shakespeare’s Hamlet?”
“Is there life after death?”
“How went it?”
“Think Differ…”

If a computer could plausibly answer this sort of questioning for an extended period, say fifteen minutes, should we conclude it is intelligent, or do we need more time to be certain?

Turing’s approach to certainty was simple. Just ask lots of questions. As you ask more and more questions, you will become increasingly certain you are talking to an intelligent being. He characterized it as a linear process; after 15 minutes of questioning you might be 99% certain and after a few hours 99.9% certain and after a few days completely certain. The problem with this approach is it does not flush out discontinuities. What if the questioning suddenly stopped without warning or explanation? A human responder is likely to worry that the questioner has had a heart attack and do something to find out what is going on including leaving the room. Humans can make creative leaps, solve non-computable puzzles or come up with a clever new joke. A humans could even announce the test is a waste of time and walk off. They just exercised free will! A computer cannot do these things.

Each year a group of scientists enters a competition run by Cambridge University to win the Loebner prize, a competition to see how close a machine can come to passing the Turing Test. If you can beat the test you win $100,000. So far no one has come close and scientists are beginning to realize just how hard it is.

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